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This chapter proposes a sustainable trajectory for leadership and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) organizational change in higher education. Leadership practices and strategies necessary to construct and implement change and cultivate diverse, equitable, and inclusive educational environments are deliberated, with particular emphasis on transformational leadership theories and practices. These types of organization development practices produce concrete transformation in institutions that have long-established, inert, and deeply entrenched cultures in which discriminatory or even racist practices have been deeply embedded and accepted over time. The complex dynamics of transformation in higher education, brought on, in part, by the rigidity of its organizational structure coupled with its history and foundation in racism and racist practices, makes achieving sustainable change difficult in higher education. Transformational change requires the creation of new mental models through meaning making and perspective sharing that allow individuals in higher education to think differently about how higher education institutions should operate given the rapid shifts in our society. Organizational change leaders must engage in deep, purposeful, and critical reflection and examination of the organization's culture to lay the groundwork for significant change. The chapter explores topics such as leading change through transformational leadership and the styles, practices, and capabilities associated with it, leadership development, strategic diversity leadership, and the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) as change leader in higher education. The internal and external environmental trends demanding substantive change in higher education continue to intensify over time. The demand for pervasive transformation in higher education is resounding, and institutional leaders must be open to and even drive new and innovative approaches to shifting its very core – its DNA, its culture – to meet those demands.

This chapter tackles the tension between equity and excellence that critics often highlight in opposition of diversity initiatives and efforts in the higher education employment setting. We present several arguments that respond to the assumptions undergirding these criticisms, by drawing on prior research to emphasize that equity and excellence are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, we present new evidence from a national sample of Black and Hispanic Engineering Faculty (BHEF) (n = 68) to argue that their racialized work experiences promote exclusive environments that serve to sustain their underrepresentation and marginalize their performance contributions. We conclude with a new direction for how to cultivate inclusive work environments in higher education.

Despite an enormous growth of the literature and research on inclusive education during the last two and a half decades, theory and practice on inclusive education are still inconsistent across the education systems worldwide. It is defined, conceptualised and practised differently across diverse socioeconomic contexts and groups of scholars and practitioners. While some promote educating all students in a mainstream classroom setting irrespective of their abilities and physical, emotional and behavioural challenges, others emphasise improving the overall quality of education for all children from diverse backgrounds. Given that education is a multidimensional social enterprise, promoting a single perspective at the cost of others or merely emphasising the role of schools and teachers may hardly result in improved education outcomes and guarantee equal learning opportunities for all. This chapter will critically review the relevant theory and discuss the different approaches to inclusive education. Then it will discuss the potential challenges to inclusive education across the education systems. Finally, the chapter will offer an inclusive way forward for improving the quality of education for all children, irrespective of their backgrounds, in mainstream schools in multicultural contexts.

This chapter presents the Readiness Approach of Educational Administration for Children with Special Needs in Inclusive Learning Management in the VUCA world by summarising Inclusive Learning Management in Thailand and analysing the challenging situation in the VUCA world to discuss about the Readiness Approach of Educational Administration to face the unexpected. The chapter describes the possibilities in three parts: Part 1: Summarising the literature reviewed of Inclusive Learning Management in Thailand. Part 2: Analysing the challenging situation in the VUCA world from the following four concepts: (1) Framework for twenty-first-century Learning Concept; (2) Hard Skill and Soft Skill Competencies Concept; (3) Thailand National Education Standards (2018) and (4) A Commission Report on Education Reform through Competency-Based Curriculum & Instruction. Part 3: to propose Data synthesis of The Readiness Approach of Educational Administration for Children with Special Needs in Inclusive Learning Management in the VUCA world.

In contextualizing critical race theory (CRT), this chapter utilized prismatic inquiry to analyze a researcher–participant's story at different levels in education through a DisCrit lens, offering the “what, why, and how” of DisCrit as an analytical tool important to the everyday lives of educators and students. Using prismatic inquiry and a DisCrit lens, the anecdotal experiences of an educator were gathered, transcribed, examined, and analyzed. Lessons from this educator's experiences that emerged were aligned to existing research literature, viewed and further analyzed through a DisCrit lens, and synthesized to offer insights in improving the training of current and future educators, classroom teachers, and school leaders.

This chapter provides an analysis of the plight of African American women leaders as they journey to the superintendency. African American women remain largely underrepresented in the superintendency. Although the number of women superintendents has increased over the years, the superintendency remains a male-dominated field and African American women remain in the minority. Consequently, African American female superintendents must overcome many obstacles such as racial and gender stereotypes, caustic work environments, and restricted access to opportunities. Critical to dismantling the underrepresentation of women superintendents is the role of mentorship and hiring practices on the recruitment and retention of Black women superintendents. Mentorship is an essential strategy in weathering these barriers. African American women also deserve a voice in the hiring practices of school districts. Further, when marginalized groups, such as Black women, are placed at the center of hiring discourses, hidden paradigms and vestiges of discrimination will be unearthed to unify efforts to provide increased opportunity and positive workplace environments. These efforts have implications for research and practice in the area of mentorship and hiring to amplify the voices of African American women superintendents and presence in the superintendency.

Europe is comprised of geographically and politically diverse countries, with different cultures and languages, at different stages in their progress towards achieving inclusive education for diverse ranges of learners. This chapter discusses cross-country collaborative work conducted within the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education. The work supports countries in meeting commitments to Sustainable Development Goals in Quality Education, by developing and implementing more inclusive education systems. This collaborative approach is based on a shared vision and evidenced-based key principles to guide policy development. It highlights the challenges alongside the progress achieved in European Country contexts towards SDG 4 targets.

To break the chains of inequality for access to education for marginalized groups across India and move toward an egalitarian society, where all people can live with dignity and fulfill their dreams, the need of the hour is to strengthen the education system and prepare teachers with secular and reformative thinking. This chapter attempts to examine the problems of various marginalized groups in Indian society and their educational provisions. This work also aims to analyze several issues and challenges related to preparing teachers for inclusive schools and to draw attention to the need to reframe and revise teacher education programs and enforce inclusive teacher education practices in India to promote inclusion.

This chapter traces one student teacher's (Joan) experiences of learning to teach English as a second language in a cross-cultural context during a teaching practicum in Hong Kong. The school-based practicum is a core component of many initial teacher education programmes. During this induction period, usually an 8-week block, student teachers are placed in local schools to learn how to integrate theories into practice in real teaching situations. Specifically, I uncover how Joan grappled with the tensions and complexities of teaching young learners from a different cultural and linguistic background, in a small elementary school situated in the borderland between Hong Kong (an autonomous region of China) and Shenzhen (a province of Mainland China).

Critical incidents from Joan's practicum experiences were analysed to uncover how she dealt with the tensions and dilemmas in confronting difference and marginalising practices while learning to teach English as a second language (ESL) in the practicum school. Implications on how to develop initial teacher education programmes so that student teachers learning to teach across cultural contexts can be encouraged to explore, confront and ‘deal with the emotional terrain of understanding difference’ will be discussed (Boler & Zembylas, 2003, p. 123; Zembylas, 2010).